Boris, the husband next door: London Mayor sleeps in rented flat 100 yards from family home to 'give his wife space'

Carefully manoeuvring his bicycle through the front door, the distinctive figure of London Mayor Boris Johnson is hard to mistake.

The picture taken this week on the North London street where Mr Johnson recently bought a family home with his wife Marina Wheeler, appears at first glance to show the dishevelled politician starting his daily commute as normal.

But, in fact, it reveals a rather more curious domestic arrangement which suggests that all is not well between the colourful Conservative politician and his wife of 17 years.

On your bike: Boris Johnson leaves the flat he is renting on the same street where his wife and four children live

Living apart: Boris and his wife Marina have an unconventional marriage

For while he and barrister Ms Wheeler, 48, paid £2.3 million for their substantial five-storey townhouse in June last year, our photograph shows that just 16 months later, Mr Johnson is no longer sleeping at the family home.

Instead, for the past few weeks he has been spending the night at a rented flat 100 yards away on the same exclusive street.

Close: Helen MacIntyre was said to believe that Boris was the father of her child

But Mr Johnson, 46, is still apparently taking advantage of the ­family’s housekeeper, who this week made the short journey between the two properties by foot to deliver a plastic bag of clean laundry.

And relations cannot be entirely frosty as on Friday evening, Mr Johnson paida visit to the house where his four children continue to live with their mother.

A source said: ‘The arrangement has been going on for several weeks now and it’sto give both Boris and his wife some space.

‘He’s still seeing an awful lot of his kids.’

Land Registry documents show Mr Johnson and Ms Wheeler bought the house jointly on June 12, 2009, and that they have a mortgage for the property in both of their names.

The flat where Mr Johnson has been living in recent weeks appears to be rented and is not owned by the couple.

As one of the most recognis­able politicians in the country, thanks to his trademark unruly mop of blond hair, and one of just a handful identifiable from their first name alone, the London Mayor has survived a string of scandals over the years involving his private life.

The disclosure about his uncon­ventional living arrangements comes after claims earlier this year that he had fathered a baby out of wedlock.

Home help: The Johnsons' housekeeper carries a bag of clean laundry from Marina's house to Boris's flat

Art consultant Helen Macintyre, 36, was said to be in no doubt that he was the father of her daughter, Stephanie – but sources close to Mr Johnson said he had not taken a DNA test, nor been asked to pay Ms Macintyre to help look after the child.

Newspaper reports alleged that Ms Mac­­in­tyre split from property adviser Pierre Rolin, her partner of three years, after spending time with Mr Johnson.

Mr Johnson’s first marriage ended in 1993 when his then wife Allegra Mostyn-Owen filed for divorce only a year after their wedding.

She discovered that he had been conducting an affair with Ms Wheeler, the daughter of BBC ­correspondent Charles Wheeler, who had known him since childhood.

And in 2004, it was reported that Mr Johnson, then Conser­vative arts spokesman and editor of The Spectator, had been conducting a four-year affair with his deputy editor, Petro­nella Wyatt.

He initially denied the relationship and went on to dismiss the reports as being ‘an inverted pyramid of piffle’.

The then Tory leader, Michael Howard, sacked Mr Johnson from the shadow frontbench for lying about the scandal, and an angry Ms Wheeler threw him out of their home.

She took him back, only for him to allegedly have a second fling two years later with journalist Anna Fazackerley.

A spokesman for the Mayor said: ‘We never comment on the Mayor’s private life.’